


Watchman of the Sea

by Pokytoad



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Liet is the sad lighthouse keeper, PTSD, wwi, you'll see this will be good someday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 21:03:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 8,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12541160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pokytoad/pseuds/Pokytoad
Summary: "I will embrace the darkness for it shows me the stars."





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a work in some serious progress and I'm not too happy with this chapter.  
> Strongly inspired by _the Light Between Oceans_ which I recommend reading or watching :)  
>  I chose to use Hinotorihime's human name for Lithuania in this. As much as I enjoy the whole culturally-appropriate-naming trend in the APH fandom I also like to go for minimal confusion, but Toris has a fairly soft, gentle connotation and we're going for the rugged-seaman vibe here.

The island was a craggy, wind-scrubbed thing — its windward shore held a dull, red lighthouse aloft on peaks of briny rock, its leeward shore was brushed with sage and wild grasses, and its owner was a tired, windswept man with crow’s feet and sun-ruddied cheeks.

Aside from the gulls and the occasional grey seal, he had no visitors.

And he liked it that way.

During the calm he kept a watchful eye on that place where the sea kissed the crisp blue sky. During the storms he was left breathless in the awesome terror of the gods. During the night he sat awake outside the lantern room smoking his pipe, silhouetted by the great turning light; the blackness of the wine-dark waves was far more inviting than the blackness of his sleep.

When the government extended a request for Tolvydas Laurinaitis' service in the lighthouse, he had been more than willing to take up the offer; the Great War had just ended, and the seaside village he had once called home was gone — only a shadow of dark ash and rubble betrayed that it had ever been there at all. The ferry left him on the island’s weathered dock with a canvas bag of provisions and a King James Bible that he couldn’t read.

He had no other belongings.

On pleasant, airy mornings he would sit on a wide rock facing the sea with his chin on one knee, thumbing a tin cup of watery coffee and savouring an hour’s respite before he took up his day shift in the tower. Sometimes he sang, reciting the tale of how Dievas instructed Vilnias to dive to the bottom of the ocean and bring back a handful of sand with which Dievas could create the land of the Earth in the midst of the endless blue waves. _Earth-diver_ , they called him.

He was sitting in this manner when, one morning, a dark object caught his eye, breaking the soft haze of blues and blush pinks that composed the cold spring dawn. He paid it no heed at first, because it looked for all in the world like the smooth back of a breaching whale or a large seal. But as it slowly drifted closer, he recognised the harsh, manmade edges of small dinghy.

So when it was close enough to be retrieved, he walked down the gravel path to the shore and waded through the gentle, tugging surf until he could grab the rope line affixed to the stern and drag the boat onto the sand. He leaned over the edge, hopeful for abandoned supplies or fishing tools. 

Instead he found a woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all know me and my micro-chapters so I don't want to hear any complaining.


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing Natalya saw when she woke up was a flock of birds. Paper birds, hanging from the oiled wood ceiling of a small, sunlit room.  
  
_Birds, pecking at her eyes and hair, swarming the boat, she can’t see them in the white-hot sunlight, and even if she could she can’t swing the oar anymore because the jaw-locking chill of the Baltic Sea is wrapping around her bones-_  
  
“No!"  
  
She sat up with a start, and suddenly noticed a strange man sitting in a beaten rocking chair on the other side of the room, mending a fishing net. He jumped at the sound of her voice and dropped the thread, but before he could stand Natalya threw off the suffocating flannel covers and bolted for the front door, crashing to the floor in the process.  
  
She could hear the man calling something as she sprinted outside, barefoot, stumbling down a gravel path shored up by sand dunes and rocky crags. And beyond that, a massive expanse of roiling grey water rose to greet the horizon.  
  
The ocean.  
  
_This wasn’t supposed to happen. This couldn’t be happening._  
  
Natalya didn’t even hesitate before throwing herself into the crashing waves, gasping as the frigid shock drew the air from her lungs. She didn’t care about the dinghy. She would rather die at sea knowing she had _tried_ to find her brother than die by this stranger’s hands.  
  
She could see him running down the shoreline — diving in after her — and stroked harder, coughing desperately as her shift clung to her legs and billowed around her torso.  
  
Weeks’ worth of being stranded at sea quickly caught up to her, and so did the man, just as she slid under the surface.  
  
Strong arms wrapped around her chest, tugged her towards the watery sunlight.

\---

"You don't need to watch me like that. I'm not going to run this time." 

Natalya crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at the man from her spot on the floor, huddled in blankets.

He blinked at her and turned back to the kettle he was heating over the blazing stove, never keeping his eyes off her for more than a few seconds.

"You'll catch pneumonia if you stay in those damp clothes."

He didn't respond. 

"Just wait until my brother finds out you kidnapped me. He'll flay you alive."

Tired of watching him tinker with the stovetop, Natalya turned her attention to the ceiling. When she squinted, she could just see the fine print of... had he used the book of Psalms to make the paper birds that had first caught her attention before?

"I hope you were _planning_  on going to hell."

She edged away when he placed a crate on the floor in front of her and arranged a plate of dry biscuits and a cup of _very_ black coffee on the new “table.”

No wonder he was so thin, living off of army-grade hardtack and coffee. She could see his bony wrists sticking out of the sleeves of his thick, cable-knit sweater when he bent over. His eyes, while strikingly sharp and stormy, were set far into his head, poorly complimented by the haunted, sleepless shadows beneath them. Were it not for the trim beard and the unkempt mop of mousy hair framing his face, he could have easily been mistaken for a prisoner of war.

He still hadn't spoken. She couldn't tell if he was slow or if he simply didn't understand her. 

With a haughty sigh Natalya turned her efforts towards gnawing at a hard biscuit, only managing to chafe a few crumbs off its edge. After banging it against the crate a few times she grimaced and tossed it in the coffee cup.

The stranger observed the attempt with a rather passive expression before silently making his way over to the parlour window, where he began to write in the condensation on the glass. She twisted 'round, still glaring indignantly, to watch him.

T-O-L-Y-S

He pointed at himself with one callused finger.

"Tolees."

 


	3. Chapter 3

Tolys inspected himself in the small, cloudy mirror hanging in the kitchen above the wash basin. His thin fingers grazed slowly over his wind-chapped cheeks and tugged at the bruises underneath his eyes.  
  
He tried his nicest smile - the one with teeth - and quickly shook his head, scolding himself.  
  
“Don’t do that.”  
  
For a fleeting moment, he glanced at the heavy comb resting untouched next to the basin, gathering a thin layer of dust…  
  
Then he remembered the last time he had tried to brush his hair and abandoned the thought, hoisting up the linens basket instead and walking out into the brisk Sunday afternoon.  
  
Washday.  
  
The Belarusian woman was reclining in the grass, holding up a small hand to shadow her eyes so she might watch him hang clothes on the wash line nearby. She had initially tried to emanate the façade of some noble Russian wife and it fooled him for a day or two, but it hadn't taken long for him to catch her accent.   
  
On the afternoon Tolys had introduced himself she said something to the effect of her name being “Natallja,” but he never figured out how to spell it properly because she had written on the window glass in Cyrillic.   
  
He was still having trouble looking at her, clad as she was in cinched trousers, her shift and a tablecloth shawl because he didn’t have any women’s clothes on hand.  
  
She talked while Tolys worked his way down the line, her tone harsh and unfriendly.   
  
He didn’t understand a word Natallja said and something told him she knew that. But she rambled on regardless, and he let her, because solitude was a dangerous thing on that island.  
  
And after all, she was stuck there until the next ferry boat arrived in three months’ time to take him to the mainland for summer holiday. When he had finally managed to explain that to her through symbols and strange gestures, she had been furious, breaking his crate in a fit of unladylike abandon before sitting silent on the sea shore for hours.

Since then her composure of sombreness had not been broken.

And while she spoke constantly, he could tell that none of her words were borne of kindness.  
  
Natallja was a dangerous woman, a wild, reckless tumult of well-concealed emotion.  
  
She was the sea herself.

Still, when she wandered behind him throughout the day he was hardly frightened. She would eventually grow tired of talking - because wherever she had come from, she had been a woman of few words - and would simply stand there while he scrubbed at the high gallery windows or sent messages through the telegraph or manually cranked the lighthouse lantern to life around sunset.

Natallja left after the stars began to wink down at them, retreating to the warm house; he had shown her how to stoke the stove herself, and she didn't attempt to ask when he refused to come inside every night, either uncaring or already knowing.

He was too terrorised by his own dreams to even consider sleeping on the kitchen floor. 

After the fourth day of this repetition, he began to pack two lunch pails because Natallja wasn't eating. She appreciated neither the gesture nor the food he made - she would never have believed that he could cook quite well on the mainland, when he wasn't working off preserved produce and salted meat - but she found her own creative ways to endure the sailor's gruel, burying it in the sand or feeding it to the gulls when she thought he wasn't looking.

It wasn't until the second week that he realised she had been mending all of the tattered clothes in his repair basket next to the stove. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are so many _pronouns_ I'm drowning in them bleugh...
> 
> I also, don't know what I'm doing with Nata's name at this point because the correct Cyrillic > Latin = Natallja so SHE should be calling herself that, not Tolys, but. um. That's not what happened.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on Nata's name before we move on:  
>  _She_ calls herself Natalya because she wants to emanate the image of the modern, "Western" woman that 20th century Slavs seemed fairly infatuated with, while _Tolys_ calls her Natallja because, Cyrillic >pronunciation>Latin-alphabet-wise, that's the traditional spelling of her name.

The man was smiling at her again, in that friendly, gentle way of his.

Natalya frowned and looked away until he turned his attention back to the fishing nets he was drawing from below the docks.  
  
It was as if Tolys - so he called himself - only stopped working to eat his dry, tasteless biscuits. She was surprised he hadn’t worked his fingers right down to the bone; as it was, he already had the roughest hands she had ever seen, always bleeding, always raw at the knuckles…  
  
Tranquil as he seemed, she knew he was running from something.  
  
Tolys inspected his nets, sitting squat over the coarse rope and gleaning through it until he found a small, precious fish, no longer than his forearm. There were only three in all, but he seemed satisfied enough. He hummed or sang quietly to no one at all while he bustled about, and that’s what really drew Natalya to follow him from midmorning to sunset every single day.  
  
Because his songs brought about the visage of brother, telling fanciful stories in that warm, soothing voice of his while she sat on his lap and laid her head against his chest, so she might feel his rumbling tales.   
  
There was something distinctly primal about this man though - and his voice reflected that. He sang more like the old villagers outside her estate back home, ancient and tonal.

He sang like the pagans that she had read about in her studies.

\---

  
Tolys spent the next hour tediously trimming, scraping and gutting the fish, covered up to his elbows in silver scales.  
  
He said something to Natalya in his odd, Baltic language and chuckled to himself, gesturing at his three prepared fish lying on the porch.  
  
“ _Nothing_ you say makes sense.” She countered bluntly, crossing her arms.  
  
Tolys’ accomplished expression never fell; he took his handiwork inside the house without another word.  
  
That night they feasted on well fried and seasoned fish — Natalya’s first _meal_ since arriving two weeks prior. He didn’t say anything when she took her plate out to the beach and ate there, begrudgingly accepting the culinary feat.  
  
In fact, he seemed quite content to sit on the front stoop and dine alone, so she faced the sea again and forced back the sting in her eyes.  
  
Natalya lay on the sand until her legs were numb. The sun crawled towards the ocean’s eager lips, hungry for its own meal, and redblood light spilled across the sky as its prey was swallowed alive.  
  
The lighthouse’s white beacon was already sweeping above her in the twilight.  
  
And she could just see Tolys’ thin legs swinging over the edge of the lantern room’s balcony from her position, could just hear the soft tinkling of a kanklės being played with deft, skilled fingers.

Nostalgia lifted towards the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the newbies to Baltic culture out there, the [penkiastygės] kanklės is a stringed instrument similar to a small dulcimer. It's popular in all three of the Baltic countries in different sizes and shapes, but I believe Latvia takes the cake for using it (the kokle) the most in song and dance, because it's their national instrument :)
> 
> You can see this lovely little instrument in action here, assuming that pasting links in a fanfic is no longer considered a cardinal sin:  
> www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOVjoaGxKt0


	5. Chapter 5

Fire.  
  
All he could feel taste breathe was fire.

Tolys dragged in a heaving gasp of air - stinging, black, heavy - and immediately choked again. He couldn’t breathe.

How he wished for the quick death of the front over this, swept up in the desperate migration of refugees, harried on by the feverish idea that he could escort them to the coast before the frenzy of clashing Germans and Russians decimated the people trapped in between their greedy fists.

The Great War had been his chance to shed blood for _his_ nation and fight beneath _his_ banner. 

Yellow, green, red.

No. Not when the artillery fire was gunning down children in sheets of silver metal.

Not when the earth herself was exploding, dark soil spraying into the air as shells pockmarked her beautiful face.

And not now, not when he was listening to the screams of the villagers in the outskirts of his beloved home, using a sopping rug to beat the flames out of the first house he saw. Inside, a woman clutched at her nursing baby, wailing.

“ _Pagalba, Dievas!_ ” Her cries tore at his exhausted heart as the fire licked at her skirts, but he couldn’t reach her. Not when the roof was a toppling waterfall of angry sparks. A dry, tearless sob of frustration left him as he threw the rug aside.

He still fought, just managing to smash through the door with his boot before someone gripped him by the arm and pulled him away from the frame. The entire house gave a dying squeal and collapsed into itself, leaving a gaping, flaming heap of timbre where he had once stood.

His screams bore no sound.

The grief-stricken shock was short lived; a German soldier grabbed the lapels of his singed jacket and slammed him into a stone wall near the house’s stables. Tolys ducked as a bayonet was dashed in the direction of his head and used the momentum to topple the man over.

Then he leapt over him and ran.

He ran straight for the fields, through the shells and the fire and the white-hot light.

He tried to help the people sprawled about in the grass at his feet, but they were all dead.

No. This was too much. He had escaped the Imperial draft to save his people, not to leave them in the hands of another tyrant.

He had no strength left to fight.

He had no strength left to run.

He turned back to face the burning village and crumpled to his knees, right there in the stubble of rye that had been harvested too early that year.

Fire.  
  
All he could feel taste breathe was fire.


	6. Chapter 6

Natalya drew the blankets tighter around her chin, relishing the soft warmth of the stove that she had kindled herself. She watched dark shadows dance across the ceiling, across the wings of those paper birds.  
  
If the fire went out, she wouldn’t mind, even though the squall was beginning to pick up, battering against the windowpanes with a revived fervour.  
  
Teeth-shattering claps of thunder caused the wings of those little birds to tremble.  
  
No sooner had Natalya begun to wonder how Tolys was faring than the front door swung open with enough force to slam into the wall. Natalya sat up sharply as he fell inside the kitchen, soaked down to his shirtsleeves.  
  
He strode straight towards her, a single word leaving his lips in a sharp, almost desperate command.  
  
“ _Ugnis!_ "  
  
Something was wrong. He never came inside after sunset, much less anywhere near her.  
  
But now he was grabbing her wrist, frenetic with poorly-concealed terror.  
  
“What the h-“  
  
“ _Ugnis!_ ” The word was repeated firmly as he pulled her out of bed. She didn’t resist; he was shaking.  
  
“Tolys! What is going on?”  
  
“ _Ugnis!_ ”  
  
“I don’t understand! I’m not- I’m _not_ going outside!”  
  
Natalya had to yell over the shrieking wind as he ran headlong into the gale with her in tow.  
  
Her shift was clinging to her skin in seconds.  
  
“Tolys!” His grip on her wrist was beginning to hurt. She wrenched her arm away and he released her without resisting, because he was already busying himself with another task.  
  
“ _Tolys_ what are you doing?” The wind was tossing them both about like sailcloth, but Tolys staggered doggedly through it.  
  
He took an old curtain that had been left to dry on the porch banister that afternoon and began to beat the sides of the house.  
  
Natalya wrapped her arms around her waist and watched, wondering if he'd gone completely mad from spending so much time outdoors.

The lighthouse's loyal beam still swept overhead.  
  
Tolys looked back only briefly to yell again.  
  
“ _Ugnis!_ ”  
  
_Ugnis_ , the word sounded dreadfully familiar. Echoing a word that brother and sestra had exchanged often during the colder months, when they had been forced to draw the shutters tight against the permeating frost…  
  
Ogon’.  
  
Fire.  
  
He was quickly tiring, Natalya could tell, so she approached him from behind and grabbed the back of his shirt in an attempt to halt his assault on the house.  
  
“Tolys, there’s no fire!”  
  
“ _Ne!_ ” He twisted, and she was forced to throw him into the grass before she wrenched her shoulders.  
  
“There’s _no fire!_ _Ne ugnis!_ ” She scraped up what rudimentary Lithuanian she was learning on the spot but he didn't listen.

Lightning split the air above them and effectively lulled Tolys' maddened firefight; she could see him in the blinding white, lying flat on the ground. He clapped his hands over his ears, pressed his face into the mud, and _screamed_. The crash of thunder above them was so loud that Natalya couldn't even hear him until several seconds after darkness had swallowed them again.

Natalya backed away, blinking in the rain, frightened. 

She had never seen anything like this before.

What was wrong with him?

"Tolys?"

The sound of her voice must've stirred up something inside of him, because he suddenly stumbled to his feet again and took off. She could just see him through the dawn-grey torrents of the squall; he turned back when he had made his way across the yards and crumpled on the leeward shore.

She looked from the safety of the house - she could see the inviting glow of the stove from where she stood - back to Tolys, who was nothing more than a miserable smudge out on the open beach now.

She went inside.

\---

Some time later, when the sun lifted soft and pink over the tossing waves, Natalya walked down the beach to where Tolys was kneeling in the wet sand. He sat shaking right where the surf broke against his back, for when the tide had risen, he had not.  

He was looking rather shellshocked, but when Natalya hesitantly approached his defensive body language told her enough.

_Don't touch me._

"Tolys?"

He looked away in shame and covered his face with both hands. 

Natalya held out a dry blanket and he didn't take it.

She almost missed his hoarse whisper, it was spoken so quietly.

" _Atsiprašau_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Atsiprašau: I'm sorry
> 
> I honestly shouldn't be writing right now so atsiprašau for the bland sentence structure and homogeneous speech patterns.


	7. Chapter 7

Tolys didn’t know what he had done, but he _did_ know that he hadn’t had such a vivid night terror since Natallja had come, and he knew that he wanted nothing more than for the sand to open up and bury him alive — for Perkūnas to sweep him into the depths of the ocean where he belonged, where he couldn’t hurt anyone...

"Tolys?" A word unlaced with hatred.  
  
Her wrist was bruised.  
  
She stood there, hardly a metre away, bare toes curling in the sand and silvery hair flying about an uncharacteristically concerned face. And when he apologised, wishing for all in the world that she could understand him, she said nothing, only held out a wool blanket.  
  
Tolys swallowed the heavy lump in his throat and waited, still and dumb, until she finally gave up and left him there. She placed the blanket just out of reach of the foaming waves and clambered back up to the yards.  
  
Salt was crusting against his hair, his skin, his beard.  
  
Saulė rose from the water and climbed to the apex of the sky's deep blue bowl. He didn't know where he drew the strength to stand and wander up the shore, up the gravel path, and up the winding lighthouse stairs, where he snuffed the gas lantern. He was aching badly and his legs shook as if he’d never walked before.  
  
The sun shone brightly that day, but he was still cold.  
  
Natallja didn’t follow him, and he was glad. He was yearning, if nothing else, for a cup of black coffee, but he dared not venture near her or the house, afraid of what else he would find there that he had done the night before. 

So he sat in the gallery and lit his pipe and let the precious sunlight and the sea breeze cleanse his sore body, ignoring the biting itch of the salt and sand still on his skin.  
  
All he knew was that it was difficult to breathe, so heavy was the shame sitting upon his chest. He leant his forehead against the bars of the balcony and closed his eyes.

 ---

Just before the sky lilted into the soft lilac foretelling sunset, Tolys went back inside the lantern room.  
  
He turned the straight razor over in his hands, testing its edge with one thumb.  
  
How simple it would be, one deep, dark line…  
  
No.  
  
He shook his head and turned to his reflection in the lens of the lighthouse’s gas lantern, segmenting his face into hundreds of smaller faces.  
  
Movements steady, albeit somewhat unfamiliar, he carefully began to scrape away at his lathered jaw.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's a fic without some Romuvan deities?  
> Perkūnas: god of storms (Zeus equivalent but nicer)  
> Saulė: goddess of the sun
> 
> We're just _gonna keep layering_ those trigger warnings aren't we.


	8. Chapter 8

Natalya admired her handiwork with a self-indulgent smile. In front of the stove was the washbasin she had found in the small lean-to behind the house; it had taken an entire day of scrubbing to restore it to a useable state, but now it was brimming with steaming, crystal clear well water that she had drawn and boiled without help. God only knew where Tolys had gone; her only indication that he hadn't taken to the sea for good was the continued maintenance of the lighthouse.

She hadn't washed in nearly a month.

At first it had been quite amusing to play the role somewhat reminiscent of a godless peasant, but she was coming to crave a sweet lilac-scented bath, drawn by sestra in the porcelain tub. Now that she was effectively covered in salty mire - no thanks to Tolys - and the days were growing longer, warmer, she felt that craving stronger than she could bear to ignore.

The only soap she could find in the house was a hard white cake that Tolys had evidently made by hand, but it would do.

She let the tablecloth she had wrapped around herself fall to the floor - having already hung her freshly washed clothes to dry - and slid into that blissful warmth, sinking down until only her face was above the surface.

It was a tight fit and her knees were drawn close to her chest, but she didn't care.

She _did_ care when the door opened and Tolys walked inside, carrying a woven basket of fishing nets. He looked preoccupied enough, whistling absently to himself, until he caught sight of her and froze, dropping the basket.

For a second they stared at each other; she couldn't tell if she was more shocked by his first appearance in two days or the fact that she could see his well-defined, cleanshaven jawline.

Then she covered her breasts with an indignant splash.

"What are you staring at! Get out!"

He covered his eyes and, presumably, swore in his language, tripping over the basket in his haste to reach the door.

"Get out, get out!"

Natalya sat up and shouted until the door slammed shut again.

With an irate grumble, she picked up the soap cake and began to scrub the grime off her skin.

But her mind refused to banish the image of his naked face. His narrow, high cheekbones were ever prominent now that nothing hid them, tinted with the rough kiss of the wind.

He was plainfaced, but handsome, and his revision had unearthed another finding - he was hardly a day over 20.

What had happened to him?

\---

  
Troubled with the possibility that that morning's encounter would scare him off for much longer than last time, Natalya left the front door open for the rest of the day.

If it wasn't courage that drew him to the house first, hunger would eventually do a fair job eating away at his unreasonable disposition. After all, the last thing he had probably eaten was the fish he had fried almost three days ago.

Sure enough, by midafternoon he was standing on the porch again, knocking on the doorframe and carefully glancing inside.

Natalya watched him fix a small cut of salted beef and pickled beans; while he stood in the middle of the kitchen and ate, he eyed the sand he had tread about with first a frown of disapproval, and next a dismissive shrug. She knew he would sweep it up regardless of whether she offered to do it for him or not, so she left him to his own devices and tried to return her focus to deciphering the King James Bible that was missing the book of Psalms.

For a man who kept his property with such care, he clearly was having difficulty enough taking care of himself.

She could see leaves in his hair and wondered what it looked like beneath the white salt-frost.

So she put down the Bible and drew him a bath.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to probablysomebody for helping me out with a few sentences :)  
> This fic needs a lot of help.

Tolys idly watched while Natallja started her own bucket brigade, marching all the way out to the water pump in the front yard, then back again to the washbasin in the parlour.   
  
Hadn’t she already taken a bath?  
  
He winced at the thought.   
  
Tolys had half a mind to get up and help her until he figured out that she was drawing a bath for _him_ , and decided to prolong _that_  affair for as long as possible instead. He couldn’t tell if he was supposed to be more concerned about the fact that he usually used that basin for gutting fish or the fact that she - a woman - might force him to take a bath in his own house.  
  
It became clear as the minutes passed that no escape could be rendered; she was pouring the last kettle of steaming water that she’d set aside into the basin and was beginning to fashion a curtain across the parlour entryway with a bedsheet.   
  
He had only just managed to quietly slip out the front door when she called out an indignant “hej!” and flung open the curtain, gesturing for him to come inside the parlour.  
  
“No, thank you.” He gave his most placating smile and tried to continue on his way, but Natallja couldn’t be deferred. She darted into the kitchen before he could take another step and began to _push_ him in the direction she wanted.  
  
“I’m not presently in need of a bath, woman.”   
  
She responded with something that sounded very sharp and very angry.  
  
He felt quite like a 12 year-old boy again.  
  
So Natallja left him standing alone in the parlour with a bar of soap in one hand and a set of… clean clothes in the other.  
  
Had she _cleaned_ his _clothes_?  
  
How cabin sick _was_ she?  
  
He had to either choose the washbasin or Natallja, who was standing just outside the curtain - he could see her small foot tapping against the floorboards.   
  
_Fire or water._  
  
He chose water and resentfully stripped down.  
  
It took all of Tolys’ willpower not to purr out loud as he sank into the silky warmth. It had been so long, he’d forgotten…   
  
No. He wouldn’t give her that satisfaction.  
  
His legs didn’t fit inside the basin, so he let them dangle over the edge, frowning at how thin and wiry he looked now that he was bare to himself.  
  
Closing his eyes, Tolys leaned back and let the water soothe his aching bones like fluid sunlight.   
  
The paper birds watched silently above.

\---

Later, he sat on the porch, smoking his pipe and waiting intently for dusk to fall.   
  
The washbasin was lying downside up in the yard.   
  
Natallja had gone out to the shore while he swept up, putting away all but the curtain over the parlour doorway - for she seemed to enjoy ensured privacy - and dragging the basin outside to be emptied in the garden.   
  
Now she was standing nearby, with both his comb _and_ a brush that he'd lost years ago in her hands.  
  
And when she hesitantly approached, and began to carefully part his hair so she might tackle brushing it, he didn’t stop her.   
  
He sat very still and quiet, hoping that if he breathed less she would touch him less, and let her work away at the stubborn tangles.


	10. Chapter 10

This close to him, Natalya could see the fine details of Tolys’ features — the faint smattering of freckles on his sun-darkened face, his lips so dry they were flaking…  
  
His hair, as it turned out, was a much richer shade than she had thought - almost burnished - and caught amber in the evening sunlight.  
  
From her position above him, she could also see the scars on his right arm. Vertical, broad and angry, they reached from his bony wrist to the crook of his elbow.  
  
“What did you do?”  
  
Tolys glanced up when she spoke and followed her gaze; he quickly turned both sleeves of his sweater back down and cleared his throat. She watched his thin fingers wrap around his wrist in a vice. Deciding it best not to force a response from him - he was taking such deep drags from his pipe now anyway - Natalya shook her head and returned her attention to his hair.

 

 _“Sestra, I’ve decided I’m staying here with you.”_  
  
_“No, darling.”_  
  
_“You can’t send me away. I’m a grown_ woman _.”_  
  
_“And your brother is a grown_ man _. You must concede to his wishes."_  
  
_Natalya frowned and pulled the brush through her sister’s hair a bit harder than she should have. Yekaterina stopped picking at the pearled embroidery of her lavish skirts to grasp her scalp._  
  
_“Nata!”_  
  
_“Sorry.”_  
  
_Yekaterina’s snow blonde hair wasn’t as pleasing to brush as it had been when they were girls; she’d cropped it short so it would fit snugly beneath her nurse’s cap, but now that she was back from the front, the girlish locks curling around her cheeks ill-suited the rich, becoming velvet draped below her shoulders._  
  
_Natalya leaned down so she could meet her sister’s haunted eyes in the vanity’s polished looking glass._  
  
_“Are you excited for the ball?”_  
  
_“No.”_  
  
_“It’s in your honour, you know.”_  
  
_“I don’t deserve honour."_  
  
_“You’ve done more for your countrymen than any of this upturned, stale lot have.”_  
  
_“It still wasn’t enough."_  
  
_Natalya shrugged and draped her arms around Yekaterina’s pale figure, placing a soft kiss on her powdered face._  
  
_“I don’t want to go to Russia.”_  
  
_Yekaterina sighed and closed her eyes._  
  
_“I’m not discussing this anymore. It’s too dangerous to stay here. The people are getting-“_  
  
_“Restless. I know.”_  
  
_“Then stop pressing it.”_  
  
_“I’m not.”_  
  
_“You are."_  
  
_There was a sharp rap at the door, and Natalya straightened so that Yekaterina could stand and smooth her skirts._  
  
_She looked regal - beautiful - standing tall in that burgundy dress as if she’d never helped a surgeon saw off limbs before._  
  
_A slim neck dripping with opulent jewels, sleeves decorated with fine gold thread, a tight corset showcasing soft, full breasts..._  
  
_With a forced smile, Yekaterina adjusted Natalya’s gown; she let her straighten the stiff bodice, feeling too angular, almost boyish in her own plain blue silk and English lace._  
  
_Then Yekaterina took up her hand, grasping just a bit too tight, and together they walked to the entryway of the chambers._

 _When the heavy golden doors opened,_  
  
  
  
Natalya was standing on the weathered porch.  
  
The brush had fallen from her clenched fist, and Tolys was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to clear any confusion, Natalya's flashback occurs somewhere between 1914, the start of WWI, and 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution. That's all the hint you get :3


	11. Chapter 11

Tolys was fiddling over the stove preparing breakfast the next morning when Natallja swept inside the parlor, still in nothing but her nightshift. He quickly turned his attention to the pot of porridge, trying not to look despite the ungodly racket she made as she overturned a basket of vegetables and stood atop it to pluck a paper crane off one of the ceiling panels.  
  
He was unsure whether he should protest or stay quiet, but she didn’t give him much time to choose, drawing unnervingly close and unfolding the crane in front of him, waving the wrinkled leaf of paper about like a war trophy.  
  
“English?”  
  
He dropped the spoon on the floor.  
  
“You speak English? You read English?”  
  
The words were coming too fast, too clear. Tolys shook his head.  
  
He could understand her.  
  
Taking this as an answer, Natallja let out a frustrated growl and crumpled the page.  
  
Tolys shook his head again and cleared his throat, working his way through the fog of expiring university studies.  
  
“I... speak small English. No read.”  
  
“You speak English?”  
  
“Small English.”  
  
And for the first time since he’d found her in the dinghy two months ago, she truly smiled.  
  
“Let me teach you more.”

\---

They spent the afternoon sprawled in the grass, soaking in the summer sunlight and as many words as Natallja could seem to remember. Tolys’ head ached with the weight of it all, like a heavy sponge. Hundreds of ugly, long sounds waited to be recalled by his tired mind.

He handed her sheared pieces of garden carrot while she stared up at the lacy blue sky and churned out nouns he hadn’t heard in almost a decade, malformed and angular on his tongue when she forced him to repeat them.  
  
Carrot.  
_Carrot_.  
  
Shirt.  
_Shirt_.  
  
Fish.  
_Fish_.  
  
Ocean.  
_Ocean_.  
  
Clouds.  
_Clouds_.  
  
Grass.  
_Grass_.  
  
By late afternoon he was beginning to recall enough to pull her wild, almost frantic sentences together. She hadn’t conversed with him before, or anyone, for that matter, in so long that she seemed to crave the new dimension of contact.  
  
Natallja continued to follow him, and as he wound his way up the spiral staircase of the lighthouse, English echoed through the shaft like hail.  
  
Stairs.  
_Stairs_.  
  
Birds.  
_Birds_.  
  
Night.  
_Night_.  
  
Stars.  
_Stars_.  
  
Window.  
_Window_.  
  
He cranked the lantern box's handle and out tumbled more,  
  
Lantern.  
_Lantern_.  
  
Oil.  
_Oil_.  
  
Dog.  
_Dog_.  
  
Cat.  
_Cat_.  
  
He walked out onto the gallery and the harsh syllables melded into the evening pitch, softened by the sound of the sea rocking back and forth against the rocks below.  
  
They sat down together, legs swinging over the balcony’s edge, legs keeping time with the rhythm of the words.  
  
Pipe.  
_Pipe_.  
  
Rocks.  
_Rocks_.  
  
Smoke.  
_Smoke_.  
  
Then the words grew heavy with sleep, and so did Tolys’ shoulder, as Natallja rested her head there and sighed.  
  
Man.  
_Man_.  
  
Woman.  
_Woman_.  
  
The words stopped.  
  
Tolys let the warm night breeze kiss his face, leaning back against the gallery window and watching for that place where the lantern’s light was swallowed by the darkness.

\---

Carrying her back down the stairs and across the yards was all at once a task of ease and clumsiness, for she was light but lanky, and his footfalls were all but certain.  
  
Tolys laid her down in the box bed and allowed himself two more foreign, highboned words while he smoothed out the crumpled page from the book of Psalms and carefully folded the wings of the crane back into place.  
  
“ _Good night_.”


	12. Chapter 12

He was crumbling at the edges.

Natalya could almost see the lighthouse's unyielding beam through the cracks in his silhouette, hunched against the blackening sky.

"Tolys."

She was resting her arms on the floor of the gallery, half her body draped over the edge of the hatch where the ladder from the floor below ended.

The poor man turned, from where he had been staring at the southeast horizon, and turned his lips upward in a horribly forced smile.

Rain viciously battered the windows around them like gunfire, visibly rattling his confidence.

"Tolys it won't be so loud downstairs."

Natalya indicated her words by covering her ears and pointing down, because despite her efforts to tutor him in the last month, his loose understanding of English had improved little beyond simple phrases and nouns.

He didn't seem interested in learning new things anymore.

Slowly gathering her meaning, Tolys shook his head and pointed back at the gathering darkness that had first enraptured his attention.

"Dangerous."

He wasn't understanding her at all.

She sighed and ran her hands through her hair, speaking more to herself in Belarusian than anyone else because she couldn't process English anymore either.

"Alright stupid, I'll come back after I've moved the wash pails."

She climbed back down the ladder, never one to leave a job unfinished.

Not unless curiosity won the upper hand of initiative, anyway.

Tolys had set up a living quarters on the floor below the gallery - one of three - right in the middle of what appeared to be his office. A huge telegraph machine took up most of the space on the brutish metal desk, which in turn took up most of the space in the circular room.

And beneath the desk was a hastily stowed bedroll.

He’d been sleeping in the upper floor of the lighthouse for two months.

Setting down the wash pails, Natalya fumbled for the matchbox in her pocket and lit the oil lamp hanging from a hook on the wall, figuring Tolys wouldn’t much mind given the increasing pitch of the lighthouse’s depths as the storm maddened itself just outside.

The soft glow of the flame brought to light what her eyes had strained to see in vague shapes before; a scattered handful of whittled animal figurines on the desk, along with a photograph of two boys in sailor suits. Rocks and hairpins and seaglass and ceramic buttons and other lost things he’d found on the shore. She smiled at the thought of him pocketing a ladies’ hairpin on his morning walk around the leeward side of the island.

And he had a whole jar of amber; smooth, glimmering pieces of it - some the shade of pale honey and others as dark as blood - all glowing richly in the lamplight.

Suddenly a loud bang resounded through the lighthouse, and Natalya jumped as a cold rush of wet wind hit her from the floor above.

As startled as she was, nothing could have prepared for what she saw when she scrambled back up the ladder and into the gallery.

Squinting against the unrelenting gusts of rain spatter churning through the gallery, she could just see that Tolys had taken down one of the windows and was clinging to the balcony rails like a drowning man would to a liferaft.

“Tolys!”

Natalya screamed just as a splintering barb of white lit up the raging ocean beneath them, closer now than she had ever seen it before, hurling itself against the weathered rocks of the island with such force that its spray fanned against the lighthouse tower. The bang of thunder that followed sent her to the floor, which was still shuddering against the angry assault of the waves.

“Tolys _no!”_

As she clambered back to her feet, bracing herself against the open window frame, she could see that he was still standing, with the resolve of a man already dead, one leg swung over the balcony now-

“Stop!”

He didn’t see her until she gathered her baggy trousers up and set a foot over the edge of the gallery opening, face morphing into a look so fierce that she couldn’t help but pause, snared between the howling of the gale and his enraged command: “No! You stay!”

Natalya bit back a desperate growl and threw the words back at him.  
  
" _You_ stay!"  
  
There was as much silence as could be allowed in the cacophony.  
  
Then his face crumpled, and a hand left the rail.  
  
"Tolys _stop_."  
  
"I am leaving."  
  
"No."  
  
"I need to."  
  
"I need _you_."  
  
She said no more, only held out her thin, shaking hand and willed him inside.  
  
Eyes steady.  
  
In the end Natalya had a sense that it wasn't she who drew him back into the safety of the gallery, but the old, faithful sense of duty that had kept him grounded there for years.  
  
Bidding his sea god one last glance of farewell, Tolys at last reached out and grasped her outstretched hand.

\---

"I told you stay inside."  
  
Tolys spoke first; he was sopping wet and bundled in his thickest jumper and his jacket on the floor of the office, but Natalya could still hear the trembling in his voice.

Crossing her arms and watching him closely, she couldn’t help but remember the first time they had spoken and she had been in his place.

"Listen to your own advice."  
  
He gave her a stern frown and closed his eyes as a deep groan emanated from the depths of the lighthouse's frame.  
  
"You do not understand."  
  
"You were in the war, weren't you."  
  
He pressed his lips together in denial, but his defensive position told her enough.  
  
"I can tell. My brother was in the war too. He had shell shock just like you."  
  
"I do not have shell shock." His tongue stumbled over the words, but she knew he recognized them.  
  
"You do."  
  
"Nothing is wrong with me."  
  
"No, but it’s a part of who you are."  
  
Tolys frowned deeper and crossed his arms over his chest.  
  
"I was keeping watch."  
  
"You were about to throw yourself over the rail."  
  
"No."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"No!"  
  
"Do you even know what happened?"  
  
"I was keeping watch!"  
  
He looked at her with anguished eyes.  
  
"I _was_."  
  
"Tolys," Natalya knelt down next to him and took up a stiff hand. "It’s okay if you don't remember what you did."  
  
His voice was hoarse, but he didn't pull away from her touch as she thumbed his palm.  
  
"I do not understand. I was keeping watch."  
  
"Alright."

And when she finally, hesitantly took Tolys up in her arms, he didn’t pull away from that either.

After several quiet, awkward moments he slid his shaking hands around her waist and held her back, even tighter.

In the lamplight Natalya saw his eyelids flicker shut and swept a hand through his bangs, smoothing out the wrinkles between his thick eyebrows before resting a cheek on top of his head, lost in the smell of the sea and his shaving cream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An extra special thank you to Kaitlin for patiently reviewing this with me over the past few _months_ and helping me push through a tough spot with this fic, I couldn't have published this without her encouragement ;-;


	13. Chapter 13

“What, have you never seen a woman in a dress before?”

Tolys couldn’t help but grin when Natallja stepped out of the shop, arms crossed as the entire ferry crew turned to catch a glimpse of her.

The day dress he had bought fit quite nicely; a soft, white cotton collar gave way to pinstripes of delicate blue flowers, gathering at a small, cinched waist and billowing around her ankles – now laced with smart, slim boots.

One of the ladies in the shop had braided her hair into a long plait that rested over her shoulder, and the sea-touselled flyaways that couldn't be tamed only served as a crown of silver atop her head.

The stares she had received when she marched down the docks barefoot in trousers and a shift were quite different from the ones she received now. Having had enough of the unwanted attention, Natallja swept off the porch and began to purposefully walk down the boards, grabbing Tolys by the arm and yanking him, stumbling, on her way.

He ignored the guffawing woops of the crew calling behind them and hesitantly placed a wind-sullied hand over hers.

“You smell pretty.”

“You smell like fish.”

She frowned up at him, but the playfulness in her eyes was as clear as polished window glass.

It was true; the scalding salt-stench of the summer docks had seeped into his clothes the moment they’d stepped ashore.

Whatever the shopkeeper had doused Natallja in had his full attention, laced with notes of vanilla and peppercorn and good, soft things. And after all, when was the last time he’d smelled a perfume on a woman that wasn’t kitchen grease? Probably in college, probably the summer before the war…

Natallja said something very fast and very _angry_ in English, and Tolys pressed his lips together in an attempt to feign understanding.

She rolled her eyes at him and slowed her pace until they were both strolling, arm in arm like siblings, companions,

_lovers…_

He pushed away the tiny word that surfaced behind his eyes – one that she’d taught him a few weeks ago, writing in the wet sand while they had waited for the ocean to swallow the sun.

Natallja wouldn’t want damaged goods.

They walked in silence for a while, boards creaking under boots.

“Can we buy anything besides fish oil here?”

He caught her words this time and smiled, leading her away from the beckoning shore and across the tiny fishing port’s tiny square.

Towards the library.

“Do you like book?”

“You know what books are?”

\---

 

Every morning that holiday Tolys met Natallja in the inn for the provided breakfast of _bulviniai blynai_ and porridge and thick rye bread (she had many comments reserved regarding the delight of tasting fresh food again) before they would set off, spending the day idling peacefully in the fields or on the beach with a basket of picnicking sweets and a heavy satchel of books.

He peered over the edge of the English book he was holding, down at Natallja – sprawled out in the flax with her arms crossed behind her head and a pile of biscuits balanced on her chest while she watched the clouds.

Natallja turned then - as if conscious of his thoughts - and faced him with a sigh of content, propping herself up on her elbows. She paid no attention when the biscuits rolled into the skirtfolds of her lap, focusing instead on scrutinizing the title of the book cover.

“Shelley is my favorite. Will you read some to me?”

Tolys tried to protest – his pronunciation was hardly good enough to give the complicated prose of _Mont Blanc_ any justice – but Natallja spared only patience for his learning stumbles.

No mocking, no scorn.

So he started, slow and shaky, feeling for all the world like his mouth was full of river pebbles.

“The ever… lasting universe of things

Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,

Now dark––now glit, glittering––now reflecting gloom––

Now lending, lending splendor, where from secret springs

The source of human thought its trib… ut?”

Tolys let his arms drop into his lap and sighed.

“Why did you stop?” Natallja stopped picking crumbs out of her pinafore and looked up with a slight frown.

“I sound ugly. And I’m too tired.”

“Those were hard words.”

With that she took the book out of his hands and gently pushed him back. He let himself fall into the grass and gazed up at the swaying fronds of flax while Natallja’s airy voice picked up the syllables he couldn’t hold on his tongue, sending them bouncing through the warm noon air.

“‘...The source of human thought its tribute brings

Of waters,––with a sound but half its own,

Such as a feeble brook will oft assume

In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,

Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,

Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river

Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.’”

\---

 

He should have seen it before it happened. He should have noticed the way Natallja made no effort to seek out the people who called her their own – surely a creature so lovely had _people_ who cherished her? But for all the days he had spent in her company on the mainland, all the hours of unforced conversation and lazy walks along the seashore hunting for amber and seaglass, never once did she ask for the telegram booth or even a letter and stamps.

Why hadn’t he told her?

Why hadn’t he told her that their days were numbered?

It wasn’t until the ferry crew had called down to him from the deck that he dared let the thought even cross his mind.

It wasn’t until she had tried to follow him onto the gangplank that he came to his senses.

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“You can’t,” he stopped and took a breath for courage, “you can’t come back with me.”

And for the first time, Natallja didn’t have anything to say. She stared at him for a few moments in silence, her expression crossing from one of disbelief to one of rage.

“Why?”

“It is forbidden. I will send money for you to stay until you find home.”

“My home is with you.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Only married woman can live with the keeper.”

“Then marry me.”

Before he had time to object, Natallja was sweeping her skirts aside and kneeling down on one knee, right there on the docks. She took his hand in both of hers.

“Don’t be afraid anymore.”

Tolys swallowed and glanced from the gaping audience of dock workers, to the groaning ferry that would take him back to his comfortable solitude, and back down to Natallja, who released his hand to fish something out of her dress pocket. She made quick work fashioning a hairpin – a hairpin he recognized from the jar of trinkets on his desk – into a crude ring.

_Something lost, something found._

“I’m not well.” The words left him in a hoarse whisper, too afraid to voice what he could never admit to himself.

He had to blink past the hot wetness in his eyes because she’d taken his hands again, clasping them together, the ring tucked into his palm like a pearl within an oyster shell.

Tucked safely away from the prying eyes of the world…

“Marry me.”  

And really, had he found her on that cold spring dawn all those months ago? Or had she found him, setting his feet on solid ground in the midst of the tossing waves?

He knew the answer, he knew it backwards and forwards; it had been written on his heart from the very beginning.

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bulviniai Blynai: Lithuanian potato pancakes!! aka the average staple Eastern European potato pancake but stupidly greasy
> 
>  _Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni_ is a beautiful 5 part poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, my _man..._ Tolys and Natalya recite the first stanza together in this chapter and I recommend reading it without Tolys's butchered English skills because.. my heart..
> 
> -
> 
> I'll be honest this was the hardest thing I've ever tried to write during one of the hardest times of my life so to everyone who supported me through all of this mess and proofread and encouraged me and didn't let me give up, you have no idea how many thank you's I owe you. 
> 
> And somehow, 364 days later its done !! I'm ready for a longass nap, but again all of my love and gratitude to y'all, you know who you are out there <3


End file.
